Juniors Flat Footed in 3-1 Loss
Lackadaisical play, save for sporadic bursts as well as a first star performance by the L’Acadie Bathurst goaltender, Nicolas Champion resulted in the home team Juniors losing 3-1 against the Titans who despite having played the night before, seemed to want it a little more.
The Titans got on the board first with an Eric Faille goal midway through the first period, which promptly woke the Juniors up. Montreal responded before the period was over with Eliezer Sherbatov completing a nifty give and go with Trevor Parkes on a two-on-one, potting his second of the season.
Despite a few fights to try and liven both their teams and the crowd, the penalty laden second period drew no goals, nor inspiration by either team. Montreal’s Pier-Antoine Dion came to teammate Guillaume Asselin’s defence after he was run into the boards by squaring off with Bathurst’s Vincent Arseneau. Another fight broke out some time in the third, this time between Jérémie Blain and Marc-André Levasseur.
Juniors forward Evgeny Solomonov learned a new rule today as he was assessed a 5 minute penalty for not having cleared the scene of the fight. He admitted after the game that, at first he was unsure why he was being told to head to the penalty box as he was unaware of this rule at the time, but obviously is very familiar with it now.
And in the third, with roughly 5 minutes left in the game, the Titans would gain the lead on a wristed, tipped, screen shot goal by Vincent Arseneau which handcuffed Juniors goaltender Jake Allen. Allen could not be blamed for either goal scored while he was between the pipes.
Montreal then proceeded to play inspired, exciting hockey for the last 5 minutes and had their share of chances, however Champion came up big, making a few great saves to preserve the victory. The Titans’ Jonathan Lessard would eventually score an empty net goal with nine seconds to go in the game.
Coach Pascal Vincent as well as many players who’s heads were down as I entered the locker room after the game were all saying the same thing: This was not a game they should have lost. They did not compete as they should have against a team that played to an overtime loss just the night before and had the Juniors applied the same intensity for 60 minutes instead of the last 5, this game’s outcome would have been much different.
Vincent went on to say that this was a learning process and his young team would take today’s lesson and use it to their advantage.
The P.E.I. Rocket will be the next visitors to the Verdun Auditorium this Wednesday, September 30th, followed up by the Saint John Seadogs on Friday, October 2nd. Both games will begin at 7:35 p.m.
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